MUSIC OF THE ELDERS

RECLAIMING INDY’S NATIVE MUSIC.

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by Crystal Hammon

European settlers officially claimed Indianapolis in 1820 and named it by combining Indiana — land of Indians (as Native Americans were known at the time) — with “polis,” the Greek word for city. Indy’s first people may have their name buried in ours, but we rarely acknowledge the dozen or so tribes that hunted, farmed and made homes here before the French explorer Robert de La Salle began wandering the territory in 1679.

Native Americans were gradually driven out of central Indiana by a series of treaties, starting with the Delaware tribe in 1818. That was followed by removal of the Potawatomi in 1838 and the Miami in 1846. By the middle of the 19th century, all but a few Native Americans — mostly the Miami tribe — had been sent to live in other places.

As tribes scattered, their language, music and culture disintegrated, according to Scott Shoemaker, Ph.D., a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and curator of Native American art, history and culture at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. “Music is a central part of who we are as people,” says Shoemaker, whose family received removal exemptions in 1846.

Some of his ancestors lived on reserved land in Indiana’s Grant, Wabash and Miami counties until the turn of the 20th century. Others moved to Kansas and Oklahoma. “The fragmentation of our people had a huge impact on our music in terms of how it was part of our daily lives,” Shoemaker says. The last of the Miami tribe’s fluent speakers died in the 1960s, leaving behind little direct knowledge of the language or the songs that were native to Miami culture.

A few things survived to help reclaim it. “When I was growing up, there was an elder who remembered a lullaby that her mom sang to her, and another elder who remembered a song that her mom created to help her not be afraid when she was sent to get wood from the wood pile,” he says.

Shoemaker recalls Eugene Brown, a respected elder who made Native American flutes. “He created beautiful flutes that had a lot of narrative carved into them,” Shoemaker says. “He was always giving them as gifts to people. When I think of a native elder, he’s the person that I strive to be. He used music to be a really generous person.”

The Miami tribe began revitalizing their language in the early 1990s, guided in part by 300-year-old Jesuit sources that documented language up to the last fluent speakers. Those discoveries stimulated new songs and innovation in tribal culture. Families educated themselves about their ancestors at community camps that sprung up around that time.

Strong relationships between the Miami and the Potawatomi also helped rebuild culture in ways that seem relevant to contemporary Native Americans. The two tribes have always been intricately tied to one another and often met to share songs and social dances. Artist George Winter lived among the Miami and Potawatomi in the 1830s in northern Indiana, and his drawings illustrate their historical kinship. “The culture in the present is just as authentic as it was in the past,” Shoemaker says. “It’s just changed and different.”

Hundreds of people from different tribes gather each year in Oklahoma for social stomp dances. “Song, music and dance were always part of social gatherings, and we’re working to actively finding ways to reintroduce that back into our community lives,” he says. “You’ll hear songs in many different languages at these dances.” ■